"AppleInsider" says Apple is planning "radically designed" MacBook Pros for release this year. Quoting unnamed "people familiar with Apple's roadmap," the article says the has completed "a top-to-bottom revamp of its notebooks lineup that will see new MacBook Pros adopt the same design traits that have made its MacBook Airs an increasingly popular choice among mobile consumers." This will purportedly include new, ultra-thin unibody enclosures that ditch optical disk drives and traditional hard drives in favor of models with lightweight chassis that employ flash-memory based solid-state drives, instant-on capabilities, extended battery life, and rely on digital distribution for software and media. Read more -- and see an "illustration of Apple's notebook lineup for the 2012 calendar year" -- at http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/10/apple_to_disrupt_notebook_... .

Call it the never-ending story. Apple has sued Samsung in Mannheim, Germany, over a patent on which a Munich court denied a preliminary injunction last week, according to "FOSS Patents" (http://macte.ch/Uuykr). What's more, Apple has brought another U.S. lawsuit against Samsung in the Northern District of California, with a simultaneous motion for a preliminary injunction, the article adds. On feb. 1, a German court refused Apple’s request to ban Samsung’s altered Galaxy Tab 10.1N, reasoning that the tablet had been altered enough to skirt Germany’s unfair competition law. That decision came a day after a Dusseldorf appeals court upheld Apple’s request to ban sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the predecessor model. Samsung began selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a revised version, in Germany to get around the ban. A lower Dusseldorf court is scheduled to rule next week on a separate case Apple filed over the Galaxy 10.1N, the article adds. In January Samsung lost two patent rulings against...

Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany has announced that a Motorola Mobility lawsuit over a patent declared essential to the 3G/UMTS wireless telecommunications standard has been dismissed, notes "FOSS Patents" (http://macte.ch/vyg1L). The judge explained that the court doesn't hold Apple to infringe claim nine of EP1053613 on a "method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access [CDMA] signal". In the court's opinion, MMI failed to present conclusive evidence for its infringement contention, "FOSS Patents" notes. This is part of an ongoing battle between the two companies. Apple has previously alleged that Motorola infringes 24 of its patents (21 of them with Android-based phones, the remaining three with set-top boxes and DVRs), while Motorola previously asserted 18 patents against a variety of Apple products (mostly but not exclusively iPhone, iPad and iPod). Litigation between the two companies has...

Scosche (http://www.scosche.com) has announced the US$149.99 bassDock -- a speaker dock for all iPad models.  The adjustable speaker dock tilts and rotates for both landscape and portrait viewing angles and features a 2.1 sound system with 40mm stereo speakers. "The bassDock transforms the iPad into a complete entertainment system," says Kas Alves, executive vice president of Scosche Industries. "It provides the power, sound system and flexibility to make your movies, music and games come alive." bassDock users can charge their iPad or iPad 2 while they watch, play games or listen. The dock provides 10 Watts (2.1 Amps) of power.

NewMacgadgets has introduced the PAD-Lock, its new security kit designed exclusively for the iPad 2. It's available now (http://macte.ch/9nnBT) for US$49.99 Constructed from lightweight, aircraft grade aluminum security brackets that attach to the outer diagonal corners, the PAD-Lock is engineered to allow full motion of the iPad while minimizing any additional weight. The power cable and coated steel wire security cable route underneath the iPad and out the back to provide a clean look, according to the folks at newMacgadgets. The security brackets attach below the iPad and create a base to raise the Apple tablet one inch off the desktop. The PAD-Lock secures to any fixed object with a seven-foot black steel wire cable and 25 mm brass padlock. A universal mount is also included to provide an anchor point if a fixed object isn't available. Included rubber pads create a soft cushion between the aluminum brackets and iPad surface to prevent scratching. The PAD-Lock is ideal for all open...

O'Reilly Media has released "iOS 5 Programming iCookbook," an US$39.99 ebook (or $49.99 for the print edition) that offers solutions and examples for iOS apps. The book offers more than 100 new recipes. They're designed to teach readers the steps necessary for writing complete iOS apps, whether they're as simple as a music player or feature a complex mix of animations, graphics, multimedia, a database, and iCloud storage. The author, Vandad Nahavandipoor, has developed software using Cocoa, Cocoa Touch, Assembly, Delphi, and .NET for many years. He has worked with some of the world's biggest brands -- such as Visa and US Bank -- to deliver mobile applications to their customers. For more information about "iOS 5 Programming iCookbook" -- including the table of contents, author bios, and cover graphic -- go to http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021728.do .

WebIS has introduced Pocket Informant Online for iOS and OS X, a service for users of their Pocket Informant Productivity app for the iPad/iPhone. It offers integration of Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, and Notes. In addition to cloud-based sync of your app's'Calendar and Task data between mobile devices, the new online product includes a web-based interface for direct access from any browser, so that users may access, edit, and sync data from any computer with an Internet connection. Pocket Informant Online will be in public beta beginning Feb. 16. You can sign up for the beta via the Pocket Informant Online link (http://pocketinformant.com/PIIP2/PI-Online.php).

Slidevana (http://www.slidevana.com) has launched its Keynote theme for Mac, iPad and iPhone users. It includes over 130 slide templates inspired by common business frameworks. Designed by MIT Sloan MBA and entrepreneur Ravi Mehta, the presentation templates have been created specifically with the busy executive in mind, according to Mehta, Slidevana's creator and CEO. Presenters can even dictate professional looking presentations with Siri, Apple's speech recognition technology. Slidevana has been designed from the ground up as a Keynote theme for iWork Keynote '09 for Mac and Keynote for iOS. For a limited time, it's available for US$69, 50% off the base price of $139.

Investment firm Canaccord Genuity tells clients -- as reported by "24/7 Wall Street" (http://macte.ch/tFL9x) -- that Apple collects around 80% of the operating profit among all handset makers. Of US$14.4 billion in industry profit, Apple’s take is $11.5 billion. Samsung comes in second with 15% of the profits, or about $2.2 billion. However, when it comes to market share,, Apple’s iOS trailed the Android operating system from Google with 19% to Android’s 48% at the end of 2011. Canaccord Genuity estimates that at the end of 2012, Android will hold 57% share to Apple’s 22%.

Intel and the New York Attorney General have agreed to terminate the lawsuit alleging violation of U.S. and state antitrust laws that was filed by the New York Attorney General in November 2009. The agreement, which follows a December 2011 court ruling that greatly reduced the scope of the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit, expressly states that Intel doesn't admit either any violation of law or that the allegations in the complaint are true, and it calls for no changes to the way Intel does business. The agreement includes a payment of $6.5 million from Intel that is intended only to cover some of the costs incurred by the New York Attorney General in the litigation. "Following recent court rulings in Intel’s favor that significantly and appropriately narrowed the scope of this case, we were able to reach an agreement with New York to bring to an end what remained of the case," says Doug Melamed, senior vice president and general counsel at Intel. "We have always said that Intel’s...

MacPaw has released Gemini (http://macpaw.com/gemini), a Mac-only duplicate finder and cleaner. The software -- available at the Mac App store for US$4.99 for a limited time -- searches for and removes duplicate files including videos, music, images, documents and more. System files are ignored by Gemini to ensure the stability of Mac OS X, according to MacPaw CEO Oleksandr Kosovan. Enhanced scanning algorithms allow Gemini to find the biggest duplicates so that a user could stop the scan and instantly clean a considerable amount of space if needed, he adds. The app can even find folders that have identical content. Gemini includes such features as built-in preview, full screen support, core animation, drag 'n drop functionality and search and sorting possibilities. With the Auto Select feature the software introduces a new way of cleaning duplicates in Mac OS X. It allows user to avoid manual and boring selection of duplicates and perform this operation with a click of a button....

Apple's stock hit a new high on Thursday, pushing the company's market capitalization to US$456 billion. That's more than the values of Google and Microsoft combined, notes "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com). As of this morning, Microsoft's market cap was around $256.7 billion, while Google was approximately $198.9 billion. With Apple's stock up more than 3% in morning trading, the company passed the combined totals of both Google and Microsoft. What's more, Apple is ahead of Exxon Mobil, which had a market cap of around $402 billion this morning. This gives Apple a value of more than $50 billion more than the oil giant, notes "AppleInsider."

Apple will hold a special event in March to unveil the iPad 3, according to "All Things D" (http://macte.ch/pd7uw). The event will be held in San Francisco, "presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts," the article adds. In writing for "All Things D," John Paczkowski speculates that the iPad 3 will most likely go on sale the week after it's unveiled at the special event. Apple, of course, declines to comment. In a note to investors -- as reported by "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com) -- Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore says he's expecting the third generation iPad next month that will sport a high-resolution display, a quad-core CPU, graphics performance four to five times faster than the iPad 2, and Siri voice control. More juice in the iPad 3 will leave competitors further behind and drive Apple market share gains, he adds. Estimates from Deutsche Bank, combined with data from IDC, suggest that Apple currently has a 25% share of the combined notebook and tablet...

The changes Samsung has made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1N are enough to no longer infringe on Apple's intellectual property rights, a judge at the district court in DA1/4sseldorf, Germany, decided Thursday. The verdict was expected, since the court delivered the same preliminary decision in December, reports "Computerworld" (http://macte.ch/Ozh2R). Samsung welcomes today's ruling, since the court has denied Apple's request to stop the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1N. The tablet remains available to consumers in Germany, a spokesman told "Computeworld" via email. Apple can appeal the verdict. This is, of course, the latest development in the apparently never-ending battle between Apple and Samsung, both of whom claim patent infringement. Samsung has sought to ban the iPhone 4S in counties such as France and Italy for patent infringement. The companyhas filed motions with courts in Paris and Milan seeking the ban, each citing two patent infringements on wireless telecommunications technology....

Many people assumed that Apple would add EPUB reading capabilities to Preview or Safari in Mac OS X Lion, or perhaps port iBooks from the iPad to the Mac. But that hasn't happened; to fill the void, TidBITS Publishing and Stairways Software have collaborated to create Bookle, an EPUB reading app for Mac OS X. Available in the Mac App Store for US$9.99 (visit http://tid.bl.it/bookle-app), Bookle 1.0 provides the core features needed for reading DRM-free EPUBs. Bookle stores all opened EPUBs in an internal library, enabling readers to switch among EPUBs instantly. Mouse, trackpad, and keyboard navigation controls are provided for moving around within an EPUB. Text formatting, background colors, and graphics all appear, and links both within an EPUB and out to Web resources are live. Readers can customize the font, size, and background color in most EPUBs on a per-title basis, and Bookle can even read EPUBs out loud. "Bookle 1.0 is intentionally simple, both because an EPUB reader should...

An analysis of tablet tariffs from the Strategy Analytics Mobile Broadband Price Benchmarking Service (http://www.strategyanalytics.com) shows that the number of tablet devices offered by operators is growing -- with many providing at least five different tablets. The research shows that 4G/LTE plans, increasingly prevalent in mobile broadband offers, are now starting to appear specifically for tablets. "Q4 2011 brought rapid growth in tablet tariffs in all countries," says Strategy Analytic's Pawel Kmiec. "Currently, nearly 35% of all plans included in the Mobile Broadband Price Benchmarking system are now tablet-specific, compared to less than 30% in our September 2011 update." Operators today offer on average 4-5 tablet devices -- usually a first- or second-generation iPad, a 7- or 10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, and, increasingly, an operator-branded tablet device. Given the scale and speed of LTE/4G developments, Strategy Analytics predicts that the number of tablet-specific LTE/4G...

CurrentWerks (http://www.currentwerks.com) says its newest energy-saving USB wall outlets, the Duo and the Quattro (pictured), are now shipping. The Duo adds two powerful USB ports with 16W of output to a standard 110V wall outlet. The Duo supports both 15A and 20A wall receptacles. It ships in regular and decorator styles with a choice of colors. The Quattro has four USB ports that have a combined 22W output and fits in a standard wall gang box. Using a patented door mechanism, the Quattro purportedly eliminates vampire power, also known as standby power, saving energy. At 2.1 amps per port, both of these products are currently the most powerful energy saving devices available on the market, according to CurrentWerks CEO Patrick Manning. They output enough to quickly charge even the most power-hungry devices such as the iPad, iPhone, Droid devices and game controllers at full charging rate.

Apple has come under fire from the Greenpeace environmental group for a lack of effort to raise awareness around issues of climate change and address itsown energy use levels, despite record profits in recent months, reports "V3" (http://macte.ch/Jwuia). Greenpeace's "Cool IT Leaderboard" report (http://macte.ch/xd37Y) assess many of the world's major technology firms for their work in raising the awareness of climate change issues, the work they do to reduce their own energy output and the services they provides for others to try and reduce their own impact. Greenpeace said Apple wasn't even included in its report because the firm had made so little effort on these issues, notes "V3." "It has not demonstrated leadership or elected to pursue market opportunities to drive IT energy solutions that many of its competitors have, despite record profits and large cash reserves," the organization said. Facebook was left out for the same reasons although, as Greenpeace says, it's now changed...

Two online petitions asking Apple to improve conditions in overseas manufacturing plants (such as the Foxconn facilities in China) ahead of the next iPhone will be hand delivered to a number of Apple's retail stores tomorrow, reports "CNET." Watchdog group SumOfUs (http://sumofus.org/) says that it plans to deliver its own petition, along with one from Change.org, to a number of Apple's retail stores around the world. That includes New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, London, Sydney, and Bangalore. Combined, the two petitions have amassed more than 250,000 signatures, the group said. SumOfUs started an online grassroots campaign last month calling on Apple to address dangerous conditions in factories manufacturing the rumored iPhone 5. "I use an iPhone myself. I love it, but I don’t love having to support sweatshops, and neither do millions of other Apple consumers," says Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs. "The hip, educated market that Apple aspires...

Apple's network of authorized Apple Premium Resellers across Europe say they're hurting from a lack of inventory since pple began expanding its own retail locations. The problem was profiled this week by France's "Les Echos," as noted by "AppleInsider" (http://www.appleinsider.com). It details a complaint filed last November by eBizcuss, the first authorized reseller of Apple France and the largest in the country, which saw its sales fall 22%in its third fiscal quarter of 2011. The Apple Premium Reseller has seen its stock price plummet 50% over the last year. "Les Echos" says Apple's own retail stores have marginalized Apple Premium Resellers. eBizcuss has filed an injunction against Apple and threaten to file a complaint of unfair competition to the Competition Authority in France. Apple's Premium Reseller page (http://www.apple.com/uk/buy/apr/) says "your local Apple Premium Reseller stocks a full range of Apple products and employs friendly, knowledgeable staff who can answer all...

Apple has released EFI firmware updates for various Macs. You can obtain them via the Software Updates component of the Mac OS X Systems Preferences app. MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.3 enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection on late 2011 MacBook Air models. It also addresses an issue where the system could restart if the power button is pressed immediately after waking from deep sleep. iMac EFI Update 1.8 enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection on mid-2010 iMac models. MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.6 enables Lion Recovery from an Internet connection on MacBook Pro (early 2010) models.

Controversial or note, Apple's Final Cut Pro X has won an Editor's Choice Award (http://macte.ch/jCQu5) from "PC Magazine," which rates it 9 out of a possible 10. Among the comments by "PC World": "Final Cut Pro X kicked off a storm in the pro video-editing community when Apple first released it. It lacked necessary capabilities they needed for their jobs—XML export and import, multicam editing, and broadcast monitor support. The third and latest update to the software brings just about everything the pros wanted, including a big one: multicam editing. Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 ($299.99, free 30-day trial available) also brings beta support for broadcast monitors, detailed control over chroma-keying, and an XML update that enables a third-party plugin to import projects from Final Cut Pro 7. With each feature restoration, Apple has not just brought parity with earlier support, but has rethought it, making it both more powerful and easier to use."

Zevrix Solutions has announced Output Factory 1.0, its new solution to automate output from Adobe InDesign. It's available for Mac OS X 10.5-10.7 and works with Adobe InDesign CS3-CS5.5. Output Factory automates printing, exporting and post-processing from InDesign, and is anupgrade of the company's BatchOutput plug-in. In addition to the output of multiple files, single page export and variable file names, Output Factory offers array of new solutions, such as layer versioning, preflighting, workflow presets and processing history. Users only need to select the files to output and adjust the settings, and Output Factory will do the rest automatically. For example, the software can be left exporting hundreds of InDesign files overnight, and the completed job can be picked up next morning. Output Factory supports printing as well as exporting to PDF, PostScript, EPS, Flash, INX, IDML, EPUB and several image formats. In addition, it can skip files with specific errors, preflight final...

Canon U.S.A. (http://www.usa.canon.com) has announced the addition of three Pixma Office printers to the lineup: the MX512 Wireless1 All-In-One (AIO), MX432 Wireless1 AIO and the MX372 AIO.  Available for both new wireless models is the Canon Easy-PhotoPrint mobile app, for use with compatible Apple and Android smart phones and tablets, allowing documents  to be scanned on the printer and sent directly to a compatible device. Users can print PDFs of documents that were created with the app directly from compatible devices, whereas in the past only photos could be printed.  With 802.11n Wi-Fi capability, the Pixma MX512 and MX432 Wireless Office AIO Printer models are capable of a high-speed network transfer rate.  Setting up a wireless network can be accomplished with the press of one button when using Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). Canon has developed the FastFront system and an exposed user interface included on all three new printers.  Located on the front of the printer, the...